The Wanderer, the Mailman, and the Doctor
by hnybnny
Summary: The Doctor hates when he lands on those sort of planets- all dead and lifeless and... ugly. The TARDIS said this was an alternative version of Earth, where war had won over diplomacy. But then he meets a small, outcasted girl in an underground bunker when his TARDIS makes her own choice, and thus his life is ensnared in that of the Capitol Wasteland's famed Lone Wanderer.


_"I was eleven when the strange man appeared in the vault._

 _"It was past curfew- almost two in the morning. Dad would have hung me up by my ears if he had known I was out this late. The Overseer, too, now that I think about it. Dad was a heavy sleeper though; and that round of scotch with Jonas the evening before helped. But I just couldn't sleep that night… had a nightmare about the outside- Mr. Brotch had showed them one of those pre-war holotapes about nuclear bombs… Won't lie, freaked me out. I know that the bombs already dropped but, it talked about all sorts of mutations and things that can happen outside. Showed bodies. Communist soldiers. I asked Grandma Taylor about it later on whether or not it was true, since she was one of the oldest in the vault. Did those many people really die? Is there any life left out there? I was just short of asking her if she ever left when Dad turned the corner and started telling me off- I'm getting a bit off-topic, aren't I? Back to the story. I went down to the reactor level where Dad stored my BB gun, thought I'd do a bit of shooting practice to calm my nerves. Wasn't worried about the noise since I had fiddled with it earlier that month and had made a makeshift silencer, plus I had sworn Stanley to secrecy if he ever heard some ' pingpingpings ' from the storage room. Wish everyone in the vault was as nice as him…_

 _"Had gotten myself on a roll and had hit the targets four times a row- four!- when I heard the noise. It was a cross between the Nuka-Cola machine when it malfunctions, and a suction tube. Sort of a… vworp? Vworp vworp vworp. That's how it went. Yeah. Came from behind a stack of those huge storage containers. Hadn't had the nerve to turn on all the lights, so I could see a blue flashing from behind there, too, reflected off the ceiling pipes._

 _"I'll admit, I was scared. Glad Butch and his lackeys weren't there- imagine the fun they'd have teasing me, the vault's resident daddy's girl, scared of a little noise and a little flashing light. Hrmph… I clasped my BB gun as hard as I could- not that it would do much, the thing could barely do in a radroach- but I guess it was the thought that counted. I rounded the corner, and there it was. A fucking box. A blue box, larger than a person, with the words 'police box' on the side. Saying it looked out of place was… an understatement. I almost laughed. Almost. From inside I could hear movement, so I readied my gun…_

 _"I jumped back when the doors opened- to reveal the weirdest looking man I had ever seen in my short eleven and a half years of existing. He was almost as tall as Dad, with wild brown hair that was all sticky-uppy, and dressed in a pre-War looking suit with a trenchcoat thrown over it, kinda like the Mysterious Stranger from those holotapes they show every Saturday night in the atrium. He seemed preoccupied- either that, or I was too short for him to initially see. Growth spurt came late. The man glanced over me, bright eyes scanning the corner that he had come out of, looking rather confused. His gaze finally dropped and he saw little old me, standing there in my pajamas holding a goddamn gun- a BB gun, but still, a gun. He opened his mouth as if to speak and then-_

 _"_ _ **I shot him.**_

 _"Well… my finger slipped. But yes, I shot this strange man, who had just clambered out of a strange box, in his strange leg with my not-strange BB gun. " OI!" I remember him shouting, holding his leg and bouncing in pain like a madman, before falling against the box and knocking his head rather hard. I just kinda… stood there. Like a stupid kid. 'Sorry' was all I managed to get out, and dropped my gun. Still staring. Liiiiike an idiot. Go young me. " S'Alright," he said, checking for any injury… not finding any, of course, it was a BB gun. Radroacher slayer was the best it could do. "Blimey… didn't expect to get shot today; life's just full of surprises, isn't it?" He looked up at me and grinned. An actual, genuine smile. Something I wasn't expecting from the stranger. I just… nodded. At least, I think I did. Can't remember all the specific details. " This doesn't happen to be Barcelona, does it?" A question that my little child brain didn't understand. It was a vault… what the hell was a Barcelona? I shook my head and he momentarily frowned. He stood up, then crouched back down so he was eye-level with me. Quite a nice gesture, thinking back on it. Adults usually aren't that considerate of kids and their vertically-challenged-ness. Still smiling, he stuck out a knobbly hand and introduced himself._

"'Ello there! I'm the Doctor! And who might you be?"


End file.
